[Spirrwell]

I recently hooked up my Mac to install Windows XP on it so it would make my life easier when working with older programs. After using it, I'm thinking about possibly switching back to XP on my main computer. I've kind of got that nostalgic feeling, and I also noticed that it runs really snappy too. Right now I'm dual-booting Windows 7 and 8, and I thought about triple booting, but I know that setting up the bootloader afterwards is going to a major pain in the ass, even more so because I have to re-install GRUB because I've actually got a Linux partition, but the bootloader got written over when I installed Windows 8.

Anyway, is there anything I'd be missing out on from Windows 7/8 other than its games, IE9/10 and whatnot? Basically, is there any real drawbacks to using Windows XP 64 bit as opposed to Windows 7/8 64 bit?

[Kathy]

What exactly would you be doing on your Win XP x64 system that would require more than 4GB address space?

Anyway, you should snap out of nostalgia. It's stupid and regressive. There is no point in going back to Win XP as the main system from Win7 except for nostalgia.

[Master Fibbles]

Spirrwell, on 20 August 2012 - 09:41 PM, said:

Anyway, is there anything I'd be missing out on from Windows 7/8 other than its games, IE9/10 and whatnot? Basically, is there any real drawbacks to using Windows XP 64 bit as opposed to Windows 7/8 64 bit?

Um, IE9/10 is more than just a little prettier...it kind of works significantly better than IE8; They have less memory leaks, more security, and better functionality (including I think HTML5).

There is no reason to use Windows XP. Windows 7 has the means of emulating anything you want for older applications. Windows 7 has better security and is far more efficient. Windows 8 is supposed to be even more efficient but I've grow accustomed to the start menu.

[TerminX]

At this point, XP is a 10+ year old, bug-ridden pile. If you're seriously asking yourself "hey, should I switch to a decade old OS which has no further support or security updates and actually runs significantly slower on modern systems than current software", you should probably be asking yourself "hey, do I even know what I'm talking about or doing?" instead.

[Kathy]

It has support and security updates up to 2014.

[Spirrwell]

As Burnett mentioned, Windows XP SP3 (I'm not sure if this is 64 bit dependent or not) has support until 2014. I was simply asking does it matter? Would there be anything out of Windows 7 that I couldn't get out of Windows XP other than the Microsoft applications that are specific to it. Yes I know security updates will eventually be a problem, but as far as the efficiency of the OS goes I don't know. I guess it was just fun to play with again. Oddly enough the reason why I wanted XP was because I couldn't compile the original Duke3D source code with OpenWatcom, little did I know I just needed the older version...

Anyway after a whole night of messing with Windows XP, I suppose I'll stick with Windows 7.

[TerminX]

That's "extended" support, nowhere near the same as the support offered for Windows 7 for example. Extended support is nothing but fixes for the most critical of security issues and zero else. No bug fixes, new compatible versions of other software, new drivers, etc.

[Hendricks266]

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition is a bastard hybrid of XP Pro and Server 2003. It should not be used under any circumstances. There is little driver support. XP should only be used, if at all, in 32-bit.

The only reason I used XP for so long is because my hardware is old enough that it really runs faster. I could not play TF2 today under Win7 because there is just too much fps drain (0-10 fps), so I will have to try to see how I can alleviate that.

[sedition]

IIRC WinXP 64bit isn´t supported like the 32bit version. There wasn´t any Service Pack at all (maybe SP1, but no more).

[Kathy]

It is. But since it comes from Win2003 it recieves all the updates Win2003 receives including Service Packs.

[Jeff]

If you run an SSD like I do, Windows 7 is the only OS that supports the TRIM function out of your two choices. Whether you have an SSD or are getting one in the future, it's good to have future proofing. Didn't state it in your post, but I just assumed everyone would be getting one eventually.

[Spirrwell]

Jeff, on 25 August 2012 - 09:40 PM, said:

If you run an SSD like I do, Windows 7 is the only OS that supports the TRIM function out of your two choices. Whether you have an SSD or are getting one in the future, it's good to have future proofing. Didn't state it in your post, but I just assumed everyone would be getting one eventually.

I've got a 64 GB sitting in an old Dell mini, back when they were really expensive, but I might eventually get one for my main desktop. I have a GIGABYTE board, and I believe they use the SSD for cache, or something similar to a swap partition I guess. I still need to upgrade my main hard drives though, they're 7200 RPM SATA 2. I need a 15000 RPM that's SATA 6. I have a question though, can SSD drives be put in RAID?

[MusicallyInspired]

Windows 7 is great. I won't be switching to Windows 8, though. I'll either skip over it like I did Vista, or switch to Linux. From the looks of things, 8 is probably going to frustrate me quite a lot more than even Vista would have.